More Kits Please - We're British.

Another day and another ebay bargain drops through the letterbox.  Or in this case is delivered to the local delivery office as being too large to fit through.

I'm still on the hunt for old early 80's Heljan kits to bulk up my 'kit mingling' parts box, these three rather tattered examples went for just £15 and although the postage almost doubled the cost, they are still a great buy.

Many of these old Heljan kits are the same ones that Walthers repackage and reissue with modern price tags, it definitely makes sense to try and get hold of the older ones cheaply where possible.  In this case one of them turned out to be one of the out of production Merchants Row kits currently selling on ebay for over $30 which is more than I paid for all three.

In this lot I have:

Crooksville Bank Block

(aka Walthers Merchants Row III) 

Ice Cream and Woolworth Store

(not reissued by Walthers as far as I can tell)

 

911 Drug Store

(not reissued by Walthers as far as I can tell)

 

Turns out that the kits are complete and in very good shape, despite what the torn and ripped outer boxes would have suggested.  I expected some missing parts at least, but I was pleasantly surprised when I opened them to discover everything present and correct, with the added bonus of a few extra pieces from some kind of wild west set for good measure.

I particularly like the Drug Store kit as it is designed to fit on an angled spot, just perfect for filling an awkward space next to a set of points or a spur track.

I bought these kits with intention of them being parts fodder, but seeing as they are complete they will most likely become the basis for the city block on my next module.

I also picked up an old IHC "Homes of Yesteryear" kit which is a really nice model of a Victorian wooden house like those seen in the Pacific Heights area of San Francisco. 

 IHC Homes of Yesteryear

Obviously it's hard to tell without having built it, but on examination this kit seems like a really nicely detailed set of parts which ought to build into a great example of an old house.  I picked this one up for only £10 including shipping which is a bit of a bargain considering how detailed it is, definitely appears to be a case where the packaging belies the quality of the contents.

So, yet more boxes of plastic added to the hoard in the loft.  Luckily we expect to be moving to a house with a garage later this year.  So I will be able to get my layout up and running and sort out all the treasure into a proper backlog of modeling work!

Benson Winter Meet 2014

A rather belated updated on this years NMRA winter meet at Benson in Oxfordshire back at the beginning of January.  It's the first meeting of the year and the small hall is always packed with layouts and traders.

This years layouts included the excellent Red Hook Bay, the Gosport modular club, a Japanese layout and a New South Wales based outback line among others.

The show is always worth a visit and the second hand area upstairs is one of the highlights, this year I picked up some Heljan building kits.

If you haven't been to an NMRA meet yet then I highly recommend checking out the Spring Meet at Weston on Trent on 26th April.
 

It's all in the details...

Another impulse buy from eBay.  I spotted this collection of detail parts going for a song so I snapped them up.  There are about forty packets of parts, including several complete sets of Smokey Valley handrails. 

Several of the parts are for SD50/60 locomotives, inluding a set of brass handrails, which will be perfect for my old school blue-box SD60 kitbash.

 
I also picked up a couple of Athearn GP60 Shells to use for the build, one of which turned out to be an in-progress Santa Fe unit which has already had a considerable amount of detailing time put into it.  

The SD60 build will require only parts of a shell and it would be a shame to undo all that great work.  I expect this locomotive will get finished off and painted instead of being hacked up, although I don't have any SF decals at the moment...

 
At this rate I will need to get a second organiser to keep my parts in, I've got a surprising amount of bits-n-pieces I've accumulated over the past couple of years, with all manner of small details west and Cannon parts in the box.   Even with all those packets I still never seem to have the actual part I need at any time though!

Neo is The One (or 1/87)

I was introduced to the Neo range of high-detail 1/87 vehicles by a fellow modeller a few months ago.  These German models are resin replicas that are finished to an incredible level of detail, these are easily the most high quality HO scale models on the market and the detail level is on a par with much larger scales.

I picked up this Ford F100 pickup on ebay for a good price, this is an older model now so I guess the price reflects the demand for it.  Certainly the more recent models in the range are over £10 more expensive!

I will be using this model as a detail for photos on my layout, its too detailed and fragile to risk using at public shows. 

Rock Island Geep - Update

The final detail parts for my Rock Island Geep project arrived in the post this week so I was able to finish the body shell and begin the painting process.

As per the prototype this GP7 is fitted with tall MU cable stands and spark arrestors, as well as the usual handrails and other details.

I had to trim the exhaust stacks from the shell in order to fit the spark arrestors.

The Atlas cab has slightly different positions for the handrails so I drilled new holes and filled the old ones with squadron putty.

I hit a few snags with the painting, it took me three attempts to get the primer onto the shell, the paint kept clogging the airbrush and I was getting really uneven coverage.  I use Vallejo acrylic primer which I have always got good results with in the past but this was a new bottle and I'm not convinced it has not been affected by something in storage.  I will need to order a new one.

For the maroon I'm using Scalecoat acrylic Rock Island Maroon, but I'm not entirely happy with the colour, it's probably a closer match to the earlier units, I think I needed more of a scarlet shade for the unit I'm modelling.

I also ran into a lot of problems getting even coverage on the shell, especially in the corners of the hood and cab, where I just couldn't seem to get a decent even coat.   I do plan to heavily distress and weather this engine so the maroon colour and patchy coverage probably won't matter too much but I definitely need to work on my airbrush technique for next time!

Norfolk Southern GP60 Build Update

I finally managed to get some workbench time on these two units today and got the Q-Fans fitted to the RPP shell, the grabirons fitted and then spent time hunting through my parts collection for the various bits and pieces I will need to finish them.

I've got almost everything I need but I realised I still haven't sourced any suitable handrails for these units, and ebay seems to be empty for Athearn sets so I will need to order some stanchions and bend my own (first time I will have to do that).

I have a set of Railflyer treads for the RPP unit, the Athearn one will recieve decal treadplate.

First Geep for Godinez

I finally started work on the first Rock Island locomotive for my Godinez roster.  The model is a vintage 1990's Front Range GP7 kit which I will be superdetailing and painting in the late sixties Rock Island maroon and yellow paint scheme.

I started with a non-dynamic front range shell which was partially painted for Burlington Northern by the previous owner but never finished. 

The Front Range kit is the same tooling that formed the basis for the new Athearn Genesis geeps, so I knew that the cab roof was the wrong angle.  I decided to try and address that by replacing the original kit cab with an Atlas one.

The Atlas cab is slightly longer than the front range one so I had the do some trimming and filing to get it to fit, I also needed to shim the cab with styrene to raise it slightly as there is clearly a difference between the hood heights on the front range and Atlas bodies.

I also separated the nose from the long hood to make it easier to add the longer cab in between, otherwise I would have needed to file away the rivet detail on the roof.

I've added grab irons and prepared the shell for further detailing.  I've got several bags of Details West parts ready to add to the locomotive and will be giving it MU stands, air hoses and drop steps as well as adding brass horns.

Next step will be filling the gaps with milliput and sanding to give a smooth surface ready for priming.